The other week my boot drive was getting full, largely due to the C:\Users\me\AppData folder (this is in Windows 8.1). I moved the folder to D:\AppData and created a symlink from C:\Users\me\AppData to D:\AppData, as has been described online. Later, I upgraded my boot drive to something bigger and decided to move my AppData folder back. I deleted the symlink and cut and paste the AppData folder back to its original location, then restarted.

Everything is okay, except programs that rely on certain information in the AppData folder seem to be "forgetful" now. For example, every time I reboot, Skype asks for my login credentials, even though I have "Sign Me In When Skype Starts" checked. Dropbox behaves similarly, and every time I reboot it asks me to login and setup my Dropbox folder. Outlook also is being forgetful, and every time I reboot I have to enter all the passwords to my email accounts. Etc...

After looking online for a solution, I verified that two registry keys indeed have the correct locations for %APPDATA% (I think -- C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming). So this wasn't the issue. Getting more aggressive, I also tried a Windows "upgrade" (8.1->8.1) to try to refresh the OS, but this didn't help either.

I'm at a loss and would really appreciate suggestions for how to solve this issue (without doing a clean Windows install of course). Thanks very much!

edit/update I thought I would add that I also tried reinstalling some of the offending programs. Even after the programs were cleanly reinstalled, they still have this same issue. Thanks for any suggestions!